Adjunct professor pay in Massachusetts, per course
From real adjunct and lecturer postings at Massachusetts colleges and universities, refreshed daily. Live and recently closed listings both count.
- Median per course · Massachusetts
- $6,000
- Middle half of listings (25th–75th)
- $4,300 – $7,225
- Typical range (5th–95th)
- $3,328 – $8,810
- Institutions disclosing pay
- 31
Based on 172 listings that disclose per-course pay.
Community colleges in Massachusetts: median $7,562 per course (n=7); all institutions: $6,000.
Highest-paying institutions in Massachusetts
Median per course among institutions with at least three disclosed-pay listings.
- Babson College$7,912n=6
- Mount Wachusett Community College$7,562n=7
- Boston University$7,500n=4
- Bentley University$7,225n=20
- Brandeis University$6,573n=16
- Worcester Polytechnic Institute$6,500n=21
- Simmons University$6,395n=9
- Stonehill College$5,127n=4
- Western New England University$5,000n=13
- Wheaton College$5,000n=5
- Endicott College$4,700n=11
By discipline
Disciplines with at least five disclosed-pay listings in Massachusetts.
- Accounting & Finance$6,810n=6
- World Languages$6,574n=8
- Communications & Media$6,176n=8
- English & Writing$6,000n=11
- Music & Performing Arts$6,000n=9
- History$6,000n=5
- Mathematics & Statistics$5,625n=6
- Chemistry$5,100n=6
- Biology & Life Sciences$5,064n=10
- Engineering$5,000n=11
- Business & Management$5,000n=17
- Psychology$4,914n=8
- Education & Teaching$4,700n=5
- Health Sciences & Nursing$3,513n=10
- Criminal Justice$3,513n=5
Twelve-month trend
$8,764May 2026
$5,127Jun 2026
$6,395Jul 2026
$6,000Aug 2026
$5,900Sep 2026
Median per-course pay of listings posted each month.
What the median means per year
Adjuncts are paid per course, so annual income depends on load. At $6,000 per course:
- 2 courses × 2 terms
- $24,000
- 3 courses × 2 terms
- $36,000
- 4 courses × 3 terms
- $72,000
Before tax, no benefits. Most institutions cap adjuncts below the load that would trigger benefits eligibility.
Where these numbers come from
- Every figure is computed from adjunct, lecturer, and part-time faculty postings that OpenLecture tracks across 4,000+ U.S. institutions, refreshed daily. Closed listings stay in the sample, so the picture covers roughly the past year.
- Only postings that state a per-course amount are compared. Hourly and annual quotes are reported separately and never converted.
- Where a range is posted, the top of the range is used. Figures below $500 or above $25,000 per course are excluded as mislabelled periods.
- Medians are shown, not averages, so a handful of outliers cannot move them. Pages with fewer than 25 disclosed-pay listings carry a warning.
- Roughly a quarter of adjunct postings disclose pay at all; these numbers describe the institutions that do.